So I could summarize your game idea as an MMO set in a steampunk world where players learn, teach, and combine a vast array of spells to fight off an alien invasion?

My initial reaction is that your idea is too complicated. Your design team is going to spend too much time building an encyclopedia of skills/spells rather than the game and world itself, and the quality of your game will suffer as a result. Furthermore, you risk giving the gamers a headache trying to figure out/scroll through all these abilities.

If the quantity of magical attacks appeals to you, it may be better to simplify your game to a mages vs aliens and scrap the melee combat system and character classes. If you want to actually make the game, scrap the MMO and rpg world and create something simple enough to be an iphone app.

I like the idea of players teaching their abilities to other players,. Maybe a game where instead of fetch quests you have "teach quests", where players have to teach an ability to another player before learning a new one. But the overhead of making an MMO means I doubt this idea will ever step beyond the hypothetical realm.

Hey, I've seen this before on forums for Gamemaker (gmc.yoyogames.com mainly), I generally call it "I r maeking MMORPG" syndrome. And I'm afraid I'm going to have to crush all your hopes and dreams now.

If you have no previous coding experience and are intending on doing it as your first project, you WILL fail. Lots of people try to jump in with MMORPGs, not understanding the scale of the project, and they all inevitably get nowhere near their aim.

Here's my recommendation: Don't do MMORPG. Don't even do multiplayer. Dealing with latency and networking, from what I know of the subject, is a whole other can of worms. Dealing with a persistent world too, without a serious programming team with a few year's experience, would be painful even for an experienced single coder. And a complex, innovative MMORPG? You need to learn how to walk, before you can sprint.

My advice is this: You clearly have an imagination, which is more than I can say for a LOT of people in the above community (and you can spell, too! lovely!), so try thinking about a much smaller, unambitious project to do. Make a basic level, iterate on it so it's fairly playable, then move up to something bigger. Although really, I doubt you'll move directly to trying to make an MMO like this, once you realise the scale of work that this would take (read: Lots of people, lot's of time. It's not unusual for this sort of thing to take a small dev team several years to make).

Try making an innovative 2D game, to start. Don't be discouraged, lots of people go through this realisation.

You haven't actually stated that you haven't done any game development before, but I'm assuming as such, because:

You didn't mention we're talking about Coding in Lua To extend on a primarily C++ based engine (Source engine) (technical details are fairly important, and you clearly aren't really thinking of them, I know what that's like).

You're talking about an engine that's only designed for ~32 players max (the default maxplayers is FOUR), and adapting for an MMORPG.

You're absolutely insane if you've done some serious coding and you think this will be easily possible on your own, without experience and without anyone else, and frankly, you seem to be perfectly sane, if a little naive. That only leaves one option, really.

Hey, I've seen this before on forums for Gamemaker (gmc.yoyogames.com mainly), I generally call it "I r maeking MMORPG" syndrome.

Yeah, I think we all had a similar syndrome at one point or another. I remember when I was younger I began recruiting people for a game idea I had. I had me, with no skills, a 3d modeller and an audio artist.

We began discussing ideas for a massive, massive, epic space RPG. Now that I look back on it, I can't believe I thought it would go through: especially with no programmer!

Anyway my point is, like Abyss said, don't lose that imagination and that determination. It's what will drive you to succeed. I'm currently learning programming, I can barely do anything, but I keep trying and I never give up because I still dream of the day I can finally make the game I said I would all those years ago.

Speaking of which, I never actually tried to make an MMO on my first attempt, but I definitely bit off more than I could chew. I think the correct attitude for your first game is to have a fairly simple, general concept, and then just dive headfirst into trying to make it tangible.

Speaking of which, I never actually tried to make an MMO on my first attempt, but I definitely bit off more than I could chew. I think the correct attitude for your first game is to have a fairly simple, general concept, and then just dive headfirst into trying to make it tangible.

Yeah I've never been a fan of MMOs so I didn't have any interest in making one.

As Abyss says, it's best to think of a really simple idea. Maybe a 2d arcade style game? The kind of thing that won't take long to make, you'll feel more satisfied as you learn if you at least have something to show for it.